Steven Witkoff, CEO of the Witkoff Group, and Columbus House at 95 West 95th StreetIn a decision that lawyers say could impact 17,000 current and former Mitchell-Lama apartments statewide, an appellate court ruled Dec. 28 that tenants at Columbus House, a former Mitchell-Lama building on the Upper West Side, were protected against rent increases after the building was sold. The Witkoff Group, following the 2006 acquisition of 95 West 95th Street for $68 million, applied for rent increases for 248 individual apartments at Columbus House, but the applications sat at the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal for more than a year. In 2007, the state then moved to close a loophole that would have allowed landlords to convert thousands of Mitchell-Lama buildings to market-rate. [more]

Tenants at Harlem’s Lenox Terrace — at 132nd through 135th streets between Lenox and Fifth avenues — have accused their landlord of illegally deregulating rents at the six-building complex while receiving J-51 tax breaks from the city, in a suit with strong echoes of last year’s tenant-led lawsuit at Stuyvesant Town. The landlord, a partnership led by the Olnick Organization, could owe anywhere from $400,000 to $6 million in rent overcharges, according to David Hersey-Webb, an attorney with Himmelstein McConnell Gribben Donoghue & Joseph, which filed the suit with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady. The two firms also filed a similar suit in November against the landlord at Chelsea’s London Terrace. Tenants in the estimated 200 to 300 apartments affected stand to gain $2,000 to $30,000 from a favorable ruling, Hershey-Webb said. Two of the buildings are still receiving the J-51 tax abatement, which expire in the other four buildings in 2008. Lenox Terrace counts Governor David Paterson and Congressman Charles Rangel as residents, though Rangel’s apartments are thought to still be rent-stabilized, and thus not affected by the suit. [Crain’s]

From left: the Apthorp, the tenants’ meeting last night (Ratner pictured center at table), a tenant’s photo of a plastic-covered construction site in the building

The attorney representing the Apthorp tenants’ association is filing an application for a rent reduction today with the Division of Housing and Community Renewal, due to “ongoing degradation of services” for renters, said David Hershey-Webb, a partner with Himmelstein McConnell Gribben Donoghue & Joseph, who represents the association. The filing comes less than 24 hours after a meeting between the association and Apthorp building manager and part-owner Andrew Ratner, COO of Broadwall Consulting Services, to go over grievances which weren’t addressed in a meeting between the parties a month ago, Hershey-Webb said. Ratner faced opposition at last night’s meeting from 15 to 20 people out of approximately 100 attendees, including rent-stabilized tenants as well as renters who have bought or are planning to buy apartments in the Upper West Side condo conversion at 2201 Broadway between 78th and 79th streets.  More

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